10 Sure-Fire Ways to Stop Making Writing So Hard

Why Do We Make Writing Harder Than It Needs to Be?

It’s amazing how often we undercut our own progress, cause a power failure, make things hard on ourselves. We set up roadblocks and wonder why the path is hard to travel. We take the long way home, because we fear the easy way. We shoot ourselves in the foot, and we don’t know that we’re doing it.

In training writers, I’ve seen people talk themselves out of writing in so many ways. Most are easy to stop if you know that you’re doing them. If you think you might be making things harder than they need to be. Hang on. I’ve got the list for you.

10 Sure-Fire Ways to Stop Making Writing So Hard

Writing will never be easy. That’s a fact. But hey, we don’t have to make it harder. Take look down this list and see whether you find yourself here. If you do, you might be able to make it less hard by changing how you approach your writing. Do you . . .

1. Do you keep starting and stopping? It’s because you don’t know what you want to say. At some point, before you start writing, ask yourself, What is it I want readers to know?

2. Do you think too much before you write? Is your head too full of information? Try reading less, taking notes, and taking a break after you read. Give the information time to sort and settle. Taking in large amounts of information is stressful, writing needs relaxation and deep thinking. Give yourself room for a brief transition.

3. Are you overly competitive? Do you find yourself thinking that everyone took all of the good ideas? Stop reading the other guys or read them at a greater distance from when you write. They’ll have less power the further away you can put them. Remember they are reading you and thinking the same thing.

4. Are you a perfectionist? There’s no such thing as perfect, but there is better than the last. We can only do what is humanly possible. When you start feeling like you need to beat the rest of us humans at everything, it’s okay to tell yourself you don’t have superpowers.

5. Do you scrap every original idea that you have? Turn off your internal editor. Tell your editor the on switch will be engaged when you edit. Then find ideas, twist them and turn them into something you like. Write until you have something you can organize before you invite your editor back.

6. Do you try to write for traffic, instead of readers? Traffic surges are unpredictable. Write what you know and feed your readers. Your core audience will stay with you and encourage their friends to join them. Traffic is fickle and often just looks and leaves.

7. Do you get stuck between great headlines and great articles? If you write a great title, keep the promise it makes. Give up the headline, and go with a great article if you can’t.

8. Is your best style stream of consciousness and you just know it shouldn’t be? You can write stream of consciousness if you make it vivid and engaging. Crawl into that stream and describe in such a way that your readers feel wet.

9. Do you write 8-mile sentences and don’t know what to do? Read your post aloud. Break them apart at the places where you need to stop to breathe. Your readers will stay with you longer.

10. Do you think writing is an individual endeavor? Writing is for, inspired by, or about other people. Half of being a writer is observing and listening to the people around us. That’s how we get better, that’s how we learn and refine the art and craft.

PLUS ONE: Forget the screen and the lurkers. Write to an audience of one. Imagine that audience is someone intelligent who shares your passion for what you are writing about, but doesn’t know the subject as well as you do.

Writing will never be easy, but it doesn’t have to be overly hard. I still love the quote that can’t be attributed.

Liz I’ve been reading your site for the last couple of weeks and am inspired by your posts. The number of times you say something which I’ve been thinking is uncanny. To the point I’ve just checked my study for hidden cameras!

Following your advice I am about to remove my internal editor with the aid of some olive oil and a teaspoon.

Hi Mike!
Great to meet you! Thanks for stopping to comment. It’s been my job for many years to figure out what folks are thinking. Those cameras have helped a lot. I’m hoping you don’t find the one that I put in your study. 🙂

Now that your’re a friend and no longer a stranger, maybe you’ll drop in at open comment night tonight. It starts after 7pm Chicago time. You’ll get to meet some of teh folks who hang out here.

I’m the opposite of Chris. I like writing, not having written. As long as I’m writing, I can still change it. Once having written, though, it’s in the public eye. The warts seem a little bigger and the rough spots a little rougher.

Ha ha I can relate to lots of those, maybe 3 and 4 are my worst out of that list. I like 10 very much and it doesn’t just apply to blogging. My poetry improved and I enjoyed writing more when I discovered the poetry school in London and started hanging out with more people writing poems – going to classes, talking about it, sharing feedback and enthusiasm.

And finally the real reason Al Gore invented the internet and it was funded by the DoD comes to light – to keep us all so distracted by an interesting link or passing thought that we can’t focus on what is happening in front of us.’-)

Beautiful post Liz. Like Mark, I’d have to say #3 and #4 are my worst – on normal days, I spend the whole day reading other blogs, and then I sit down at night trying to come up with something that HASN’T been said.

I write for me. Yes, I wish I had a few readers…. my blog is SO new nobody has read any of it yet. I don’t know all the terminology yet (what the heck is blogtipping?)

I do Love your blog though. I just don’t have enough hours in the day to read every blog I like and still write, do coursework for an online class I am taking, enjoy time with my new grandson, research new ideas for writing, and oh yeah… breathe.

Hi Kay,
Welcome. Don’t feel bad about not knowing “blogtipping.” It’s a term Easton made up in which you choose three blogs and say three positive things about what the bloggers are doing and then for each one you say one additional thing about what you’d like to see something more of. That’s the fun of being part of an unfolding adventure . . . we get to help establish the vocabulary. 🙂

You might enjoy our Tuesday night comment night when we actually talk to each other about fun and regular stuff, such as Pirates, Music, and Neighborhood hangouts. It’s a way that we get to know each other as people. It’s fast and furious commenting, but there’ s nothing like it for feeling a bond with other blogger.

Thanks for coming by and for commenting. I sure hope you’ll leave more words about writing. I love talkng to writers on this blog.

Thanks so much for the Dorothy Parker attribution. I’ve looked and looked more than once, and not ever been able to find who said that. It is one of my all-time favorite quotes, because of the the grammatical twist it uses and the emotional impact.

Thanks Geri,
I think we’re going to have to start a Dorothy Parker fan club. I love her writing. I just never could find the source for that quote. I probably knew it once, but I’ve known it so long, my old brain got too much information and it was pushed out.

Hi Beth.
Welcome,
You do have a point there. Some folks are overly competitive, but I guess most in that case would really be being just insecure. I hate to think of things on those terms that’s probably why I whose the wrong word.

In this case, however, I think your choice of words might be more precise about what’s really going on there. Thatnks for clarifying . . . sometimes it’s right to say what it is.

Hi Liz – I wonder if I may have your permission to use your “Ten Surefire Ways to Improve Your Writing” as a handout for an English 1 course I’m teaching at MATC Madison, Wi this summer? Of course, I will credit you and provide your blog link. Thanks in advance – but I won’t use it if I don’t receive permission. When I have time, I’ll peruse the rest of your blog. I like what I saw so far.

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